MGS5: Phantom Pain “200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes” – Kojima

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is quite a short game by all accounts, but don’t worry – series mastermind Hideo Kojima told Play that The Phantom Pain, when it finally arrives, will absolutely dwarf this teaser/prologue.

“The Phantom Pain is roughly 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes,” Kojima revealed in an interview for Play 241’s MGS5 cover feature. “A game that big wouldn’t be ready for next-gen launch windows, and we didn’t have any Japanese titles that would be available. At that time, the Ground Zeroes portion was almost complete and a lot of fans were asking for a prologue, so that’s the decision we came to.”

Reports of Ground Zeroes being a glorified demo have been vastly exaggerated and although you can finish it in about an hour, there’s enough content in there to last you way longer than that. With this in mind, Kojima’s quote – which likely refers to the size of the game’s open world in comparison to that of Ground Zeroes rather than the lengths of the two games – is all the more exciting. In a series where cut-scenes have been known to come in at over an hour long, we never expected The Phantom Pain to be anything less than epic. But this time, Kojima has a personal point to prove as well.

“We’ve seen a phenomenon around the world, especially in Japan,” adds Kojima. “Young people are losing interest in high-end games and focussing on mobile and social games. With the launch of next-gen, I wanted to show people that Japanese high-end games are still worth playing and big Japanese games still have a future.”

Want to find out even more about Metal Gear Solid 5? You can read the full interview with MGS legend Hideo Kojima – as well as full hands-on coverage on Ground Zeroes and all the latest details on The Phantom Pain – in Play #241, out tomorrow (Tuesday 4 March) in all good newsagents and supermarkets, as well as in digital form for phones and tablets. And if you like what you see and enjoy saving money, you can get Play even cheaper by subcribing to either the print or the digital editions.